Birding In The Garden: June 2013

Wednesday 26 June 2013

Garden News

Today I'm just going to give you an update on what's been going on in my garden. The name "Birding in the Garden" is slightly invalid now really as I seem to talk more about stuff outside the garden! I am just giving you information about the changes made to the bird garden. Well, here goes.

There has been a pair of Blue Titmice nesting in one of the trees outside the nursery of Sharps Copse School (just outside my back gate) and today the parents brought their fledged young out to feed at my feeding-station. First I should really inform you of the changes I have made to the garden in the sense of bird-feeders as this photo....

that I have used at least twice is from 2010 and things really have changed since then. The feeding-station now looks like this...
(photo taken today)

The perspex seed tube feeder in the corner (on the 2010 photo) broke in 2012 but has been replaced by a steel and wire-mesh peanut feeder. The pear-shaped peanut feeder is now hanging on a bracket off the shed wall. The fat ball on the right in the 2010 picture has been replaced by a coconut shell filled with millet seed and suet and the fat ball on the left has been replaced by a homemade milk bottle feeder. I took photos of each feeder separately as some are not visible in the photo:

steel and wire-mesh peanut feeder hung on bird-table

nyjer seed feeder hanging off bird-table

homemade milk bottle feeder hanging off bird-table

plastic bottle with adapter hanging off bird table but tied round the pole holding up the roof because there was no more room to put hooks.

coconut shell filled with millet seed and suet, already partly eaten by Blue Titmice and Starlings. They go through about one of these a week.

fat ball feeder hanging off the shed wall, already partly nommed by Blue Titmice. I put this out so the Blue Titmice don't get deprived of suet food by the Starlings, one because the Starlings have scoffed it all, and two because the aggressive Starlings scare the titmice who are more shy.

the pear-shaped peanut feeder is now hanging outside the shed.

Well there's what the feeders are like now. The Blue Titmice particularly like the fat balls when the fledglings are with them but when the adults are alone they like the coconut shell. Here are some photos of the tits feeding with their young.

I have a photo of one of the parents on the coconut too, taken three coconuts ago!

There have also been Starlings nesting near the house and the parents brought their young to the garden too. The idea of having a fat ball feeder as well as a coconut one is working. The Starlings are taking over the coconut a bit but the Blue Titmice still have the fat balls (which they now seem to be preferring). There were once three adult Starlings, spectacularly dressed in full breeding plumage, perched at different points around the top part of the garden. Two of them were the parents of the "local nest" and the other one was just hoping to claim territory. There was a big aerial fight between the Starlings with lots of screaming and squawking and scratching, the two parents coming out tops. I hoped feathers would fly so I would get one but none did. One of the adults can do car-alarm imitations! lol! Anyway, here's one of the juvenile Starlings feeding at the coconut, this time the current one.

There is also a Robin coming to the table and the floor (the seed sprinkled on the patio) and sometimes to coconut (never the fat balls) that I am close to hand-taming. Yesterday I was putting a handful of mealworms onto the table platform when the Robin came down and touched my hand with it's claw while stuffing it's face with mealworms that were still in my hand (!!). Here's a pic from earlier in the year of the Robin when it was slightly less tamed.

So there's the significant garden bird news. Oh, one last bit. There was a Magpie dispute in the trees outside the school too. Lots of cackling and high-pitched noises.

BYE!

Sunday 23 June 2013

AWWC (amazeballs)

Sorry it's been so long. The real day out was on 18th May!! Stupid me. Before the main post starts, because it is the breeding season (it's too late for birds to breed in them now but for next year) I will put my nesting-boxes poster up again:

No, I can't draw female Shovellers. DEAL WITH IT.

Here comes a bit of epicness; go there yourself to EXPERIENCE THE COMPLETE EPICNESS. The first thing is a drawing by me inspired by this place. There was not Whooper Swans there but I thought "Mute among Whoopers" sounds better than "Mute among Bewick's" (there was Bewick's Swans there) and plus I don't have a clue what the plural of Bewick's is. Whooper Swans make more noise than Bewick's as well so it adds to the whole graceful silent Mute theme.

"The Graceful Silence of the Mute among the Whoopers" by me! I think the Whooper in the right corner went particularly well.

I scanned it with the scanner and the colours will have been a bit different to the original which I no longer have because I put it with my late great-grandmother Mary, may she rest in peace. :-(

There is a poem by me to go with this drawing:

The Graceful Silence of the Mute among the Whoopers

Vibrant curling notes

Winding around the tongues of the Whoopers,

Suddenly out of the open bills fly

Out – and whoooooOOP! – curl, twist and coil

Out of the bill fly to summon more for the wedge*.

But out in the middle,

Passing through like royalty,

A Mute is silently going.

The Whoopers humbly back away to clear a path.

No noise, no curling notes,

No sound comes out from this bill.

Gracefully gliding through the water, bigger and sleeker

Than any Whooper could be.

A flock of swans is called a "wedge" did yo know? (that was a deliberate yo) I think I told you that before but WHO CARES?

Now, you may be wondering what place I am on about. I mentioned it on the last post. The Arundel Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre (WWT)!!!! Here are some of the wildfowl species there (that I can remember). There was so many and loads I did not even know existed.

Trumpeter Swan (Cygnus buccinator) with the best Latin name ever for some reason.
Coscoroba Swan (Coscoroba coscoroba) YES I KEEP MENTIONING THEM. DEAL WITH IT.
Rosybill aka Rosy-billed Pochard, Rosybill Duck (Netta peposaca)
Mandarin (Duck) (Aix galericulata)
Wood Duck aka Carolina Duck (Aix sponsa)
Magpie Goose (Anseranas semipalmata) Anseranas is Anser and Anas (goose and duck) stuck together because it is neither a goose nor a duck but somewhere in between! CLEVER.
Greater Scaup or just Scaup. North Americans call it the Bluebill (Aythya marila)
Harlequin Duck called by North Americans the Lords and Ladies Duck (Histrionicus histrionicus)
Falcated Teal aka Falcated Duck (Anas falcata)
Cinnamon Teal (Anas cyanoptera) Why don't they call the Blue-winged Teal that Latin name as cyanoptera means "blue-winged" in Latin?
Plus the inevitable Columba livia var. domestica, the Town Pigeon aka Feral Dove or Feral Pigeon.

Okay. The list will get too big so I will now show you some of the photos!

Mallard podgy couple

"I can haz grain?" Mallard duck

Trumpeter Swan on nest

Black-necked Swan

White Call-duck and Blue Duck (the White Call-duck is a breed of domestic Mallard and the Blue Duck is an actual species)

Falcated Teal

Rosybill

Feral Pigeon

Add caption

Tufted Duck

Eider

Rosybill

Wigeon washing (unexpected alliteration)

The inevitable Moorhen

Feral Pigeon photobomb! The duck is a Mallard

Pidge-Podge!

Eider

Mandarin drakes

Mallard

Mute Swan

Herring-gull (this is one of about five photos of the same bird in the same place, I love them so much!)

Wood Duck

Add caption

Goldeneye

Mute Swan

Scaup

weird pattern Feral Pigeon

Black-necked Swan

the White Call-duck again

There is this hut with lots of dried plants and things made with them in it. There are signs and labels telling you about the medicinal and other uses for the plants.